Oh, I say, don't mix up your countries, old boy. We chinless agents are proud to serve in Her Majesty's Secret Service. The agents of the country you're thinking of have other distinctive facial features.

Once had the misfortune to sit shotgun with a STONED driver !! He drove up highway exit ramps TWICE in 10 minutes !! He otherwise seemed capable, unlike a drunk who would drive up an exit ramp !! Either drug is deadly in its results !! Lucky for him I don't drink, don't smoke !! What do I do ??

I live in India, and I can (and have) bought Nexus devices and Android software off Google Play. So their block is not implemented consistently.

Also, this has nothing to do with protecting Samsung. Many sites have restrictions on cross-border transactions. The reasons vary, but the most consistent reason is that the territory is with a different operating unit. For example, Google India would want to launch Nexus in India when they're ready, and so Google USA doesn't sell to Indian customers.

I agree that this is silly. All they have to do is to say warranties apply only in the US. But Google is not the only company doing this.

Bismillah writes: ""Of the current top 30 most popular iPhone apps in Australia last week, SC Magazine found that half were cracked and uploaded to App Trackr the same day they were released on Apple’s app store."

For someone who has never looked outside iTunes/App Store for iOS apps, this comes as a revelation."Link to Original Source

mynameiskhan writes: There seems to be at least one government that thinks p2p is fine. Throw the url on to translate.google.com and there is more to this. Of course, the trade association of the entertainment industry in Portugal says the government is twisting the law and does not want to end up send 2 million letters to the violators.Link to Original Source

Third Position writes: The most unambiguous data to date on the elusive 113th atomic element has been obtained by researchers at the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-based Science (RNC). A chain of six consecutive alpha decays, produced in experiments at the RIKEN Radioisotope Beam Factory (RIBF), conclusively identifies the element through connections to well-known daughter nuclides. The search for superheavy elements is a difficult and painstaking process. Such elements do not occur in nature and must be produced through experiments involving nuclear reactors or particle accelerators, via processes of nuclear fusion or neutron absorption. Since the first such element was discovered in 1940, the United States, Russia and Germany have competed to synthesize more of them. Elements 93 to 103 were discovered by the Americans, elements 104 to 106 by the Russians and the Americans, elements 107 to 112 by the Germans, and the two most recently named elements, 114 and 116, by cooperative work of the Russians and Americans. With their latest findings, associate chief scientist Kosuke Morita and his team at the RNC are set follow in these footsteps and make Japan the first country in Asia to name an atomic element.Link to Original Source

Sometimes, they are actually mandated by their clients to do all this. They hate all this fakery as much as you do, and would love to use their real names.

Sometimes? It's always the clients who mandate the accent "training", the "local knowledge" and the fake names. Why would an Indian call center agent bother if he or she didn't have to? It's not as if any of them actually enjoy their jobs.

I just returned home yesterday after a week in the hospital following a 9-hour surgery, so have some context for this.

When my attending nurse was signing out of his/her shift, he/she would come in with all my files into my room, with his/her replacement, and spend up to 20 minutes going through a very detailed handover. They were so efficient at it that even a casual remark by the doctor, "Get him a shave, he'll fell better" was passed on by the night nurse to the day nurse so that they could call the hospital barber.

Granted, this was in India, not in the US, but I was impressed by the detailed communications.